The Dark Side Also Rises
by Awel
Summary: In the Jedi Temple after Order 66, Anakin seeks to put to rest his misgivings. A small bit of Anakin and Palpatine as a pairing.


**The Dark Side Also Rises  
Awel**

It's over, finally, and although Anakin Skywalker knows it, he walks the halls of the Temple, covering every square meter with footsteps that echo unnaturally in his ears. Every so often, though he has lived here for nearly fifteen years, he finds that he is lost, with identical brown walls on every side.

He keeps going, stubbornly, the thought _A Jedi does not know fear_ appearing in his mind, unbidden. It is only after several minutes have passed that he remembers the phrase no longer really applies to him.

_A Sith does not know fear_. He tries it out, and the words feel absurd.

He finds himself back at the door of his old quarters. Not so old, he thinks, as he'd left them just that morning to attend the reports on General Grievous. Idly, he wonders where he will live now. Would Palpatine really present him with the Senatorial Apartments? He smiles a little at the ridiculousness of the thought. And then it comes to him: with no Jedi Order, he will be free, of course, to live with Padmé as her husband.

The thought cheers him for a moment, and he passes by his room's closed door. There is nothing there he needs—_a Jedi has no need for possessions_—and he pushes away any nostalgia. The Temple is no more than a building.

Obi-Wan's rooms are just down the hall. Anakin hurries past them.

Some of these rooms no doubt contain the bodies of Jedi. Anakin hadn't come here during the fighting; he'd left it to the clones while remaining downstairs, in the thick of the battle. Afterwards, he had methodically searched out any stragglers. The last of them had been hiding in the Council chamber. It had taken him only minutes.

He quickens his pace even more; his master is arriving. Palpatine has always listened to him, given him counsel when the most Obi-Wan would say was "Be mindful of your feelings". He will know that Anakin, in his relentless wandering through the empty Temple, is trying to escape his thoughts. And he will know how to aid his apprentice in doing just that.

Palpatine is surrounded by clone troops as Anakin approaches him. He says nothing, merely gazing at his apprentice, waiting. Anakin suddenly feels reluctant to kneel before him. He, Anakin Skywalker, has faced the best Masters of the Jedi Order, and won. He is a decorated hero of the Clone Wars. What had seemed so natural, so right to him in the office several hours ago now stings his pride and seems silly in the presence of the battalion of soldiers.

Can Palpatine sense this, or does he merely wish to preserve the secret of the Sith a little while longer? In any case, he dismisses the troops and leads Anakin to a deserted room to their right. The bodies of fallen Jedi are numerous here. Palpatine allows himself an approving nod.

Out of sight of the clones, Anakin can't think of an excuse not to kneel.

"It is done, my master," he says, fixing his eyes on the hem of Palpatine's robe.

"You have done well, Lord Vader," the Sith Lord says, almost absent-mindedly. "But I sense something is troubling you."

Anakin is silent.

"Come, Lord Vader," Palpatine says, and although Anakin can't see his master's face, he knows the reassuring smile that twists its remains. "I have supported you since you arrived on Coruscant. Have things changed so much, then?"

_Actually_, Anakin can't help but think, _yes_. Eventually, though, he says, "I know that this"—he gestures around him, unwilling to put a name to his actions—"was my duty. And for the most part I treated it as a task—no more than fighting the battle droids on the _Invisible Hand_."

In the hangar, disabling droid after droid with the slightest turn of his wrist, cutting off their nasal whines, every so often throwing a grin in Obi-Wan's direction.

No, this isn't the time to think about Obi-Wan either.

"Good, my apprentice."

A silence. Finally he adds hastily, "But for a minute—it was something more than a job. Something—I—" He breaks off, hoping his master will speak. When he doesn't, Anakin inhales audibly and continues.

"For just a moment, my master, I enjoyed doing it. I _loved_ it." The details, Anakin tells himself, Palpatine doesn't need to know. Doesn't need to know exactly how much of the dark side his new apprentice carries with him—the Padawans he'd played with, treating the fights almost as training exercises before tiring of the charade; the ones he hadn't even bothered to use the lightsaber on, simply using the Force to end their lives; all the things he'd done just to see if he could. "It was _fun_." He sits back, slightly disgusted at his own words. Fun: it was a word he'd used often, in his childhood, to describe flying, Podracing, working on a droid. Not a concept, he realized dully, that he'd thought about much at all since coming to the Jedi Temple.

"When you were a Padawan, Lord Vader," Palpatine is saying, "surely you had jobs, yes? Responsibilities. To your fellow Jedi, your Master, maybe."

Anakin, mute, nods.

"And, no doubt, when you were younger you sometimes resented them, am I right?"

"Yes, Master."

"And Master Kenobi—did he not instruct you that one's task is to be completed willingly, and that you should be proud, even happy, to help others through your work?"

It is, in fact, almost exactly what Obi-Wan had said. The words are surreal, coming from Palpatine.

"Well, Lord Vader, today you have helped me. The war is nearly over. Soon there will be peace—the very peace you have worked so hard to bring about for years. You have served the Republic more today than during any of your valiant, but unfortunately futile, years bound to the Jedi." Palpatine is looking away thoughtfully now, over Anakin's bowed head. "And, unlike anything you did during those years, you have benefited from this yourself as well. You found strength in you today that you will carry with you forever. It is this that will help you to save Padmé."

Palpatine draws closer to his apprentice's bent form. "You know your goal well, Lord Vader. Why should you not take pleasure in what you have to do to reach it? Every step you take along this path brings you that much closer to a life with her."

Anakin shakes his head. "How can I enjoy this? Death?"

"Tell me, Lord Vader. You are a veteran of the war—did you never feel the exhilaration of battle, fighting the Separatist armies?" Palpatine is staring directly down at him now, almost smiling.

Anakin thinks about it. "When I was younger, Master. And sometimes even after that. But it was different."

"Is it so much?"

"Of course," says Anakin, impatiently. "The Separatists use droid armies. Destroying a droid is hardly different from turning off a light, shutting off an engine. The Jedi…these are the people I grew up with. They're my family."

"No." The word is quick and sharp, and Anakin is surprised. "They kept you from your family, Anakin, from your mother and your wife. They feared you because you had such potential. They betrayed your friend and mentor."

Palpatine's voice softens. "They have done more to you personally, my apprentice, than any Separatist will ever do."

Anakin thinks about this too. About his mother, her "don't look back" nestling in his mind for years, the pain never dulling. Her face in the Tatooine desert, beyond saving. The sinking feeling, the day after his wedding, that he could share this joy with no one else, ever.

None of these moments, he realizes, had anything to do with the war. These memories, the worst moments in his life, have all been brought about by the Jedi.

He finds himself nodding. "Yes, my master," he replies. Maybe everything is the same: Palpatine, even after all this, is still the kindly old man who always believed in Anakin's potential, called him a son.

It no longer pains Anakin to kneel to him; it is as effortless as the first time in the Chancellor's office. Nor does it seem out of place for Palpatine to undo his robes, and for Anakin to reach for his master, pulling him close, and to take him in his mouth. It is a physical act, and a welcome relief from thought. Palpatine brushes his apprentice's hair back from his face. Anakin doesn't stop. Although inexperienced, he is skilled, he knows; Anakin Skywalker has always been good at everything he puts his mind to, and it's never occurred to him to think otherwise.

He opens his eyes, though, and catches sight of a dead Padawan to the side. A Bothan, young for her species. Killed, it is hard not to notice, by a lightsaber—his own—to the head. A few years ago she'd declared that she wanted to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Jedi Master himself had been the last to hear of the affair, and had blushed furiously when he'd found out. He could never understand her adulation, nor that she was merely the first in a trend of hero-worshippers.

Anakin gags suddenly, and looks up into his master's face, expecting disapproval. Instead, he sees that Palpatine has hardly reacted—his eyes are fixed on the body of the Bothan Padawan, ecstatic. In an instant Anakin knows that it is the result of his work, and not Anakin himself, that is giving him so much satisfaction.

Anakin's eyes widen with the realization, and then Palpatine comes, abrupt and devoid of passion. Anakin remains kneeling, silent, long after his master turns away to adjust his robes.

His voice seems slow and ill-formed. "Padmé." The word is almost foreign to him. "I've—what have—I've betrayed her." His voice rising, shrill, to the Temple's high ceilings. He hasn't sounded this panicked—felt this panicked, maybe—since he was about fourteen.

The Sith Lord turns slowly, as if nothing had happened. "Do you feel your power growing?" he asks. A pointed look.

Anakin waves the question aside. "How can I go back to her now?" He's almost crying, now, and losing control, ten years old again and hating himself for losing every chance he ever had.

Palpatine sighs and shrugs theatrically. "Indeed. How can you tell her that you took Darth Sidious in your mouth? You worry about what she will think when she finds out how…thoroughly you have given yourself to me." A pause for effect, and Anakin hates him for it. "Not about, for instance, what she will think when she finds out the part you have played in controlling the Jedi uprisings?"

Anakin sits back and closes his eyes. Of course, he's right again. "She won't approve of that either, my master."

He thinks of the last time he saw her. _I'm not going to die in childbirth…I promise you._ "But I made a promise, Master," he says frantically, "the most basic promise of marriage. Fidelity…and now it means nothing, and if it means nothing, neither do the rest of my vows."

"Do you remember," says Palpatine, "what I told you about your goals? When this is all over, you will be able to help your wife. Until then…everything you do is for her, is because you want to help her. It is only what must be done." The smile, Palpatine's on the face of Sidious, a slight upturning of the mouth that comes slowly and painfully, as if with a momentous effort. "You have done well, my young apprentice. Go and bring peace to the Empire."

Anakin rises, shaking away the stress of genuflection and pulling his cloak around him. If his departure is unnecessarily curt, Palpatine doesn't remark on it.

His master had promised to help him, assured him that only through the assistance of the Sith could he save Padmé's life. Betrayed, tricked into action that he thought he was smart enough to prevent, Anakin pushes his shame away, along with the memory of Palpatine pushing his head down, thrusting into his mouth. Palpatine has no intention of helping him. It's been a setup, the whole thing, merely a vehicle for the Sith Lord's real agenda. Anakin is alone, without even the Jedi Order to come to his aid.

Ironically, it confirms the truth of the Sith even more: all Anakin can rely on, and all he will ever need, is himself.

_What do you want?_

He wants Padmé. He wants the war to end. And now, he gradually admits to himself the last truth: He wants to kill Palpatine. To bring reason and order back to the Republic. It is Palpatine's Empire for now, but there is no reason why it can't be Anakin's. He fought for it when it was yet the Republic, gave it years of his life and a good portion of his self. He deserves it. With his influence, the Senate will listen to Padmé, and the bureaucracy that has saddened and aged her will be a thing of the past. He'll see his wife truly happy again.

Yes, he realizes, the Republic will indeed be better off under his hands than those of Darth Sidious. But that's only part of the story.

He's going to kill Palpatine because he wants to. To erase the humiliation he had felt, kneeling and gagging on the floor of the Jedi Temple. To forget everything that has happened since he became Darth Vader. And it will truly be over.

For now, though, he will go to Padmé. He can't tell her, but his regret for what he has done will be in every word, every gesture, everything he does for her. He'll give her the galaxy, and his love, and maybe forgiveness will come. Only a little while longer, he thinks, pulling himself into the cockpit of his fighter with a weary hand, and this will all come to an end.


End file.
